Cat and Mouse
Jones introduced a permanent "antagonist" of sorts for the mice in Mouse Wreckers. The short was released on 23 April 1949 and was the first in which they are officially called "Hubie" and "Bertie". In the cartoon, the duo moves into a new home, only to discover that it is protected by champion mouser Claude Cat (the character's debut), voiced by Mel Blanc. The mice, of course, torment the poor puss both physically and mentally. The short was nominated for an Academy Award.
The mice would go on to agonize Claude in two more films. The Hypo-chondri-cat on 15 April 1950, featured Hubie and Bertie making Claude think he's sick with various ailments and, ultimately, make him think he's dead. In Cheese Chasers, on 25 August 1951, Hubie and Bertie inadvertently torment Claude when, after going overboard on a cheese raid and getting sick of their favorite food, they decide to commit suicide by trying to get Claude to eat them.
After these seven cartoons, Jones retired Hubie and Bertie. He was moving on to other characters, such as Pepe Le Pew, Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner, and Marvin the Martian, as well as his Marc Antony and Pussyfoot shorts. Jones would, however, continue to use the characters (or mice designed just like them) in cameo roles in other shorts whenever he needed a generic mouse for a gag (for instance, the unnamed mouse in Chow Hound - who resembles Bertie - or the "killer" mice in Scaredy Cat).
Read more about this topic: Hubie And Bertie
Famous quotes containing the words cat and/or mouse:
“Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.
Thrice and once the hedge-pig whin’d.
Harper cries: ‘Tis time, ‘tis time.
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“It is as when a migrating army of mice girdles a forest of pines. The chopper fells trees from the same motive that the mouse gnaws them,—to get his living. You tell me that he has a more interesting family than the mouse. That is as it happens.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)